Directed
by: Colin Eggleston, Starring: John Hargreaves, Briony Behets. Horror.
Australia 1978, 95mins, Cert 15.
Released in 1978 (a year after THE DAY OF THE
ANIMALS), Director Colin Eggleston’s eco-horror is now considered a cult
classic. Written by Everett De Roche, who in addition to penning a
glossier remake in 2008, also wrote the animal centric 80’s horrors of
RAZORBACK(giant wild boar), LINK (super-intelligent murderous orangutan), and
other notable Ozploitation offerings such as PATRICK (1978), HARLEQUIN (1980)
and ROAD GAMES (1981), it unquestionably has genre pedigree.
Unhappily married couple Peter (John Hargreaves) and
Marcia (Briony Behets) abandon the urban city jungle for a make or break long
weekend away in the wilderness at a remote beach location. Far from being one
with nature, Marcia is not the outdoor type and makes it crystal clear she’d
rather spend the weekend at a luxury hotel. Peter is oblivious to the impact he
has on the environment, staggeringly blasé and ignorant to the flora and fauna
he encounters. Eventually, their respective transgressions against Mother
Nature provoke a violent karma and she begins to fight back...
Peter and Marcia are an intensely unlikeable couple
and their constant sniping and bickering signposts to an unsalvageable
marriage. Their blatant disregard and deep-seated resentment towards each other
is fuelled by an extra-marital affair and a resultant abortion which festers
away poisoning their relationship. This mutual vitriol manifests not only in
how they treat each other but also in how they react to their natural
surroundings, often destructively lashing out in unwarranted acts of aggression
and cruelty. The film is loaded with (over)ripe symbolism to this effect.
Marcia discovers an eagle’s egg (“We can make an omelette!” suggests Peter)
before eventually hurling it against a tree extinguishing the life growing
inside in a fit of anger. This results in Peter being attacked by the
understandably distraught mother eagle. Peter’s drunken haphazard firing of his
rifle (born out of pent up frustration as Marcia doesn’t wish to resume sexual
relations with him) brings about the death of a mother duck as we zoom in on
her confused chicks. (Marcia, for her part, prefers instead to masturbate to a
Harold Robbins novel). Peter also shoots a harmless Dugong which in turn also
appears to have a grieving calf judging by the haunting cries echoing across
the beach at night. It’s also no coincidence their coastal retreat is located
near an abattoir – a detail which takes on greater significance in the films
denouement.
Peter especially is a one-man catalyst of natural
destruction. Before he has even arrived at the intended campsite destination he
has already managed to start a roadside fire with a discarded cigarette butt
and callously run over a kangaroo which acts as a foreshadowing moment. Upon
arrival he immediately proceeds to start axing away at a nearby tree, when
asked by Marcia as to why he replies: “Why not?” Marcia for her part happily
sprays insecticide on ants which are only attracted to the food which she’s
left out to rot in the sun.
There’s a potentially disturbing plot strand
involving another apparent family of visitors further down the beach which
isn’t fully explored, and a suggestion that the locals aren’t the most
welcoming towards tourists, to the point where they deny the existence of the
beach when Peter mentions it in the roadside bar. But it’s Mother Nature that
Peter and Marcia really need to be concerned about.
It’s significant that the majority of creatures
which Peter and Marcia encounter (with the exception of a reasonably scary
looking large spider and a potentially harmful snake), are benign and
non-predatory. A Tasmanian devil, koala, and a possum – not to mention a Dugong
(sea-cow) are hardly deadly which implies that if even these gentle beings can
get riled up by Peter and Marcia then they really are out of sync with the
natural order and invite judgement upon themselves. The actual attack scenes
are brief and not overly convincing (although I’ve never seen a possum look
quite so baleful). Instead director Eggleston wisely racks up the implied sense
of threat by employing a soundscape littered with jarring and effectively
unsettling foley work with animal screeches and cries, and judicious foliage
rustling.
Cinematographer Vincent Monton’s POV shots crawling
through the grass coupled with high angled omnipotent shots look down as if the
camera were a predatory vulture hovering in judgement further enhances the
ominous mood.
Shot in anamorphic widescreen on location in Bournda
Nature Reserve, the wide-open compositions reiterate the displacement and isolation
of the characters and emphasises how small and insignificant they are beyond
their poisonous domestic bubble.
It’s a measured downbeat film which lacks the
crowd-pleasing attack sequences of more exploitative B-movie treatments of
the natural horror genre. It’s therefore not much of a stretch to see why
domestic audiences didn’t initially embrace a film which has a subtext about
white colonialism at its heart and runs over a kangaroo.
***(out of 5*)
Paul Worts
This review was originally published by FrightFest.
